Timed Back
by rookiewriter09
Summary: Holly Short is on a recon mission when she is accidentally transported over eighty years back in time, and finds herself in a midst of a very familiar plot to flood half of Haven. Making things worse, the LEP believe that she is behind the plot.


Happy Holidays to all! This is my first fanfic. I hope you like it. Reviews are very much appreciated; after all, feedback is the road to improvement.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of the characters, except for the ones I create. I don't own any of the chapter start quotes either.

* * *

"_I never leave a man down, Chix" –_Holly Short

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**Chasing Traps**

Foaly's voice was vibrant over the connection.

"He's moving towards your right. Towards downtown. Hurry."

"D'arvit," swore Captain Short, rising to a height of three hundred feet. From her vantage point, she could see across the high-rises to the English Channel, but sightseeing wasn't what she had come for all the way to Dublin.

Captain Short pushed the throttle, chasing the beacon on her visor that marked the runaway pixie. Right now that beacon was moving at Olympic speed down Market towards Elm Avenue. Holly hovered above Market, looking down at the crowded street. That pixie was good at dodging people.

_He could be a football player, _thought Holly, and then, _shut up and focus. _

"I think I can get a visual," said Captain Short. She zoomed in towards the beacon. Holly immediately noticed two things. First, the pixie was running thin. She could almost see him even without the shield filter in her helmet. Next, he was running in a zigzag pattern.

_As if he's dodging bullets._

"I have to go in. Two minutes longer and he'll be completely visible. And this time there won't be any Artemis around to jam the cameras."

Foaly sighed. Why didn't _anything_ ever go according to plan? "Be careful. There are probably snipers around."

"No problem."

Captain Short activated a thermal shield cam in her helmet. The cam worked on a technique that Holly had manually improvised during a Recon at Darmstadt. Two thermal 360 video panoramas were taken simultaneously, one with anti-shield filter, which showed shielded beings as stationary blobs of red, and one without, causing shielded beings to appear blurred. The video feeds would be compared to search for anomalies, uncovering shielded beings up to a kilometer away, whether wide open or hiding in trash cans. (It had happened before)

Right now that cam was showing only one anomaly within Dublin, directly below her. That was the pixie.

"Clear," said Holly. "I'm going in."

Foaly already knew the elfin captain's plan. "There's an empty scrapyard about half a klick east. Corner of Elm and Amherst."

There was no answer. There shouldn't be.

* * *

Captain Short flew directly above the pixie. He expertly dodged the crowds of people, making the task even harder for Holly.

Teeth gritted, she stunned him with a low-level charge from her handgun. Then, even before he could fall to the ground, Holly grabbed him by the shoulder, attached him to a Moonbelt on her waist belt, and was off towards the aforementioned scrapyard faster than a carrot down Foaly's gullet. And in case you haven't read TAI, that's pretty fast.

Holly landed softly in a corner of the deserted scrapyard, hopefully hidden well enough by a sheet of rusting metal. The pixie was completely visible now. Holly snapped a picture of his face, and sent it to Section 8 HQ. Almost instantaneously, the tapping of keys dangled through the helmet speakers.

"We've got a mug shot; will it do?"

"Hmm," said Foaly. "Strange background for a runaway. Name's Remus Sanders. Decent middle-class background, graduated with high honors from East Haven University. He eventually became a professor of quantum physics there, a position he held for over half a century."

Holly was surprised. "A professor?"

"He quit the job ten years ago after his grandfather died. After that we have no record. Mysterious what happened to him. His record is comletely clean, though. All inn all, a respectable man."

Holly ran a standard scan on Sanders. Healthy, drug and alcohol free, seemed fine. She rifled through the pixie's pockets. Pencils, a few slips of paper with nearly illegible handwriting. She carefully preserved them for examination at Police Plaza. Then at the bottom, a bright red handkerchief. It was tied shut; there was something rigid within.

She opened the handkerchief. There was a small rock inside. Mostly white, with dark spots. Rough texture. Perhaps granite. She gingerly turned it over with a stick; a red marking on the back. Some sort of symbol. This too would have to be examined at Forensics.

Suddenly, Foaly's voice turned ominous. "Holly, I would advise you to get out of there."

Holly instinctively recoiled. "Explain."

"I'm reading…," the voice was cut short by interference. A magma flare.

"Shit!" muttered Holly. These magma flares always came at the wrong moment.

"High magical energy density…..[interference again]… danger…"

Captain Short groaned. _D'arvit. _She couldn't just leave the pixie here. She quickly put all the rubbish back in the pixie's pocket, then turned to re-tie the handkerchief.

Unwittingly, her ring finger casually brushed against the marking on the stone; the symbol glowed white, and the tremendous stores of ancient magical energy in the little chunk of granite was released, vaporizing anything within the precise range of three feet.

And all of everything became nothing at all.

* * *

Captain Short woke to bright sunlight overhead. Day, perhaps afternoon.

Her hearing took a moment longer to recover. It sounded like a city. Old-fashioned car honks filled the air. Children laughing. Adults talking. More children. A couple of crows.

Holly groaned, tilting her head. She was in a scrapyard. The same scrapyard, but there was less stuff. And the arrangement of the stuff was different. Market Street stretched beyond the gate. No concrete or tar. The buildings were brick, the roads paved with stone. Ancient-looking Ford Model Ts instead of the usual BMWs and SUVs.

_What the hell is going on here?_

She sat up, gingerly stretching out her muscles. No injuries. Just the soreness of laying in an awkward posture for a long time. And she was shielded too, but running thin. Before her little nap, she had been running hot.

_I've been here for a few hours. I'm still in Dublin. _

_ An older Dublin. _

Captain Short stood up, brushing herself off. Her weapon was there; a quick diagnostic told her that all was in working order. Her suit – functional. Good.

Then she remembered what had happened. _The stone_. Something must have happened with the stone.

_I've gone back in time. Maybe seventy, eighty years. _

Holly had to find help. Help and a couple experts.

"I need to get back to Haven…" she muttered.

Then a voice came from behind her. A very familiar LEP voice and a Neutrino barrel against her neck.

"Perhaps I can help you get there."


End file.
